Sunday, March 31, 2013

Thanks to a newly found willingness for peace, intelligence, and cooperation throughout the world, we have decided that delivering scary news, especially pieces about Vladimir Putin's bare chest, is no longer required. Starting tomorrow, we will start publishing sandwich recipes and gossip items pertaining to Mr. T.Before we do, we'd like thank the following government agencies, groups and individuals for helping keep the Coming Crisis sloshed with disinformation these past years:To the Central Intelligence Agency: We couldn't have done it without you! Those surface-to-arab missiles kept all the angries away while we covered a multitude of democracy spreading actions. Yay, Coca Cola!To the Department of Homeland Security: Thanks for letting us lick our assault rifles one last time before you took them away. I agree, this fork makes me feel just as safe.

To the Mossad: I see you. I see you in the corner there. You big bunch of teddy bears, you. Is that wire for fishing? I've always wanted to snag a Mediterranean tuna.

To David Cameron: Did you just touch Clegg's behind? I saw that.

To the European Union: Lynsey will one day overthrow your evil empire and bake a cake from your crushed bones. Tea anyone?

To WND: Thank you for pointing out the dangers of Islam. This morning, I found no less than 34 muslims hiding in various parts of my house. A Quran and a nice cheese platter later, and I was able to scoot them off to the nearest garage sale.

To those leaving snotty remarks about our work: Nah, nah, nah-nah, nah! Who has the blog with millions of views and awesome readers? And who doesn't? Represent, home dawg. *Drops microphone on stage, adjusts du-rag and swaggers off*

To the Media: Thank you for keeping us abreast of the Christopher Dorner situation throughout its manifold stages of violence and terror, in your various roles:

CNN: "Christopher Dorner was shot during a gun battle at his mountain cabin."

MSNBC: "Christopher Dorner died when he set himself and his cabin on fire."

FOX: "He fell."

PARTY INSTRUCTIONS:

1. If you are a member of the LAPD, thank the black person next to you for waiting until all the white people refreshed the Coming Crisis home page before he did.

2. Do NOT feed the Palestinians if you hear them under the table. They may hurl rocks and/or demand freedom. Simply let them lick the plates after everyone leaves.

4. Remember: if you can afford children, you can afford to donate each month! We also except wills and funeral plots, preferably those in yards with a low goose population.

Alright, alright. In all seriousness, thank you all for yet another year of news and struggle. If you'd truly like to help us out and contribute, please click here.To view the actual alert in progress regarding the North Korean situation, please click here. It is still very much in effect, but thought we could all use a touch of levity before that area of the world cascades into events unmentionable. Take care and stay safe, everyone.

Soaring tensions on the Korean peninsula have seen dire North Korean threats met with an unusually assertive US response that analysts warn could take a familiar game into dangerous territory.

By publicly highlighting its recent deployment of nuclear-capable B-52 and stealth bombers over South Korea, Washington has, at times, almost appeared to be purposefully goading an already apoplectic Pyongyang.

"There certainly seems to be an element of 'let's show we're taking the gloves off this time' about the US stance," said Paul Carroll, program director at the Ploughshares Fund, a US-based security policy think-tank.

And the North has responded in kind, declaring on Saturday that it was now in a "state of war" with South Korea.

Since the Great Tohoku Earthquake of March 2011, scientists have been anxiously watching the massive volcano known as Mt. Fuji for signs of activity. In September of last year, a report was released stating that Mt. Fuji’s magma chamber pressure had risen to a worrisome 1.6 megapascals, which is estimated to be higher than when it last erupted.

According to retired professor Masaki Kimura of Ryukyu University, this and other recent phenomena indicate an eruption of Mt. Fuji should have taken place in 2011 with a four-year margin of error ending in 2015.

First, a little background on Mt. Fuji. Japan sits on the edge of a “subduction zone” which is where one layer of the Earth’s crust is pushed under another. In the below image, courtesy of Google Maps, you can see the trench along which subduction is occurring around Japan.

William Strickland waited for his grandfather to step out of his South Side home to take his paratransit ride to a kidney dialysis appointment early March 2, authorities said Saturday — then stood behind the 72-year-old man, shot him six times in the back and stole his wallet, leaving him to die just steps from his home.

Prosecutors said Saturday that Strickland, 19, used the money he took from his grandfather, who also was named William Strickland, to pay for new gym shoes, a cellphone and tattoos.

The teen had no criminal history but was an admitted gang member, they said.

He’d been living with his grandfather, according to neighbors.

“I just know that he stayed there,” said neighbor Mario Farmer, who was shocked at hearing the news about the grandson being accused. “I would have never expected it. That’s sad. That’s really sad.”

U.S. F-22 stealth fighter jets arrived in South Korea on Sunday for exercises as part of an effort to demonstrate advanced military capabilities, seeking to deter provocations from North Korea, according to reports.

The move come after North Korea warned South Korea earlier in the weekend that the Korean peninsula had entered a “state of war,” according to an Associated Press report. Pyongyang threatened to shut down a border factory that is a symbol of North and South Korean cooperation, according to the report.

The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that the arrival of the stealth jets came after previous examples of U.S. air power that included B-52 bombers and B-2 stealth bombers. The F-22 steal jets are normally stationed in Japan at Kadena air force base but flew to a South Korean base for continuing military exercises. Stealth aircraft more easily evade radar tracking.

Tensions have risen sharply since the United Nations tightened sanctions in response to the North's nuclear and missile tests. Joint US-South Korean military drills south of the border also angered Pyongyang.

On Saturday, the North declared it was in a "state of war" with the South and warned Seoul and Washington that any provocation would swiftly escalate into an all-out nuclear conflict.

Dallas authorities suspect a sinister plot upon finding a district attorney and his wife slain on Saturday, only months after an assistant district attorney in the same Kaufman County office was murdered. Mike McLelland and wife Cynthia were found shot in their home near Forney, police said.

The saying may be nothing is certain but death and taxes but people do like to push their luck if a list of unusual IRS claims is anything to go by.

Americans have tried and failed to write-off all manner of things from their taxes, it appears, but the scariest are the ones they've managed to get away with.

Turbotax has compiled a list of bizarre exemption attempts that failed to work but there are also a surprising number that did get approved including the woman who claimed her breast implants were a business expense and the man who passed off his swimming pool as medical.

Smaller savers may not have been hit by a levy on their bank accounts, but they will be swept up in the economic storm that is sure to descend on Cyprus as a result of such draconian measures.

It’s tempting to wonder why any troubled eurozone country like Cyprus was ever let into what was obviously a rich man’s club.

But that is unfair – the poorer members were welcomed with open arms, with the assurance that the euro would turn them into German-style economic titans. It was like persuading a pauper to join a casino.

Yes, Cyprus let its banking sector balloon wildly and, yes, it is the Cypriot government that has dreamt up some of the more masochistic features of the various bailout plans.

But all this human sacrifice in the eurozone – austerity, mass unemployment, arbitrary bank account levies – is about saving the euro. You wonder how much pain there has to be before someone realises that what must be sacrificed is the euro itself.

Bank of Cyprus savers will see 37.5 per cent of any deposits over €100,000 (£85,000) converted into shares in the bank, with a strong possibility that these will prove worthless. Another 40 per cent will be repaid only if the bank does well in future, while 22.5 per cent will go into a contingency fund that could be subject to further write-offs.

Laiki Bank customers are also reported to be facing the loss of 80 per cent of their deposits above the £85,000 limit.

An early bailout plan – highlighted by The Mail on Sunday two weeks ago – would have seen the losses shared across all bank customers, regardless of their balance.

An Iranian convict with no permission to be in Britain is fighting to stay because of human rights legislation, despite racking up 40 offences including theft and assault.

Davodreza Abasbahi-Gotti, 37, came to the UK in 2002 and has already had 18 convictions and has served three prison sentences during that time.
His crimes include assaulting a police officer, theft, and driving while disqualified on multiple occasions.

He has also been convicted for driving without tax or insurance numerous times, according to the Sunday Times.

Germany's two main opposition parties traded warnings on Sunday against joining forces with Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives after September's election if they fail to win their own left-of-center majority.

The leaders of the Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens party issued unusually shrill messages to each others' supporters about the risk their votes might end up going to a party that could join forces in a coalition with Merkel.

Rescue workers have pulled 29 bodies from the rubble of a collapsed building in Tanzania's commercial capital Dar es Salaam, a senior official said on Sunday.

The building of more than 12 storeys, which had been under construction near a mosque in the Kariakoo district around the city center, caved in on Friday morning. Several cars were crushed and boys playing soccer nearby were among the dead.

Italy's 87-year-old President Giorgio Napolitano will face the greatest test of his career during his final weeks in office as he tries to end the standoff preventing a new government being formed more than a month after elections.

Following widespread reports he may resign to open the way for a new vote, Napolitano pledged to remain in office at the Quirinale palace until his term ends on May 15, averting the immediate threat of further turmoil.

He named 10 "wise men" including European Affairs Minister Enzo Moavero and senior politicians from the main center-left and center-right blocs to propose a series of urgent measures that could be backed by all parties.

North Korea has vowed to strengthen its nuclear capability, keeping up a defiant tone a day after warning it was in a "state of war" with South Korea.

Pyongyang also said it would never abandon its atomic weapons in exchange for aid, describing them as a "national treasure".

The central committee of the ruling Workers' Party, chaired by leader Kim Jong-Un, decided at a meeting that the country's nuclear arsenal "should be expanded and beefed up qualitatively and quantitatively until the denuclearisation of the world is realised", the official KCNA news agency reported.

Syrian rebels have set three oil wells in the east of the country ablaze, causing a daily loss of nearly 5,000 barrels of oil and 52,000 cubic meters of gas, state media quoted an oil ministry official as saying on Sunday.

SANA news agency said the damage to the oil wells in Deir al-Zor province, much of which is in rebel hands, followed disputes among the fighters over "sharing out the stolen oil" from fields in areas they control.

It said Syria's Furat Petroleum Corporation was working to extinguish the three fires. A total of nine wells had been set on fire by the rebels, the agency added, without saying when the other six had been set ablaze.

Egyptian prosecutors questioned Egypt's most prominent television satirist on Sunday over allegations he insulted the president and Islam, a case that has increased opposition fears of a crackdown on dissent.

Bassem Youssef turned himself in after the prosecutor general issued an arrest warrant for him on Saturday. He was released on bail of 15,000 Egyptian pounds ($2,200), an official in the prosecutor's office said.

A pizza delivery man shot dead outside a Domino's takeaway in Belfast has been named as Kieran McManus, aged 26.

He is understood to have been hit twice during the attack at Kennedy Way in the west of the city on Saturday night.

DCI Karen Baxter from the Police Service of Northern Ireland said: "What we know is that at 11.20pm last night Kieran was with a number of friends when he was shot at short range by what we believe was a lone gunman.

"We are asking for anyone with information, who was in and around the pizza place last night to come forward.

Visitors to Paris's popular Museum of Natural History this weekend found a key exhibit under wraps after a man broke in and chainsawed a tusk from an elephant which once belonged to the Sun King, Louis XIV.

Police were called to the museum in the early hours of Saturday morning where they found a chainsaw still whirring after a man in his 20s escaped over a wall with a tusk over his shoulder. A police official said a neighbour of the museum on Paris's Left Bank alerted authorities after hearing a strange sawing sound at around 3am. The museum alarm system was activated and startled the intruder into fleeing just minutes after beginning his chainsaw attack. He was treated in hospital for a fractured ankle from a fall while escaping and was being questioned by investigators.

The African elephant, whose left tusk was sawn off, was a gift from a Portuguese king to Louis XIV in 1668. It lived for 13 years in the royal menagerie in the grounds of the opulent palace of Versailles where it became the star attraction. When it died, its skeleton was transferred to the natural history collection in Paris, one of the biggest in the world alongside London's Natural History Museum.http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/31/chainsaw-man-stealing-elephant-tusk-paris-museum

King Abdullah II swore in a trim cabinet line-up of 19 members on Saturday led by reformist Prime Minister Abdullah Nsur, who merged several portfolios to cut spending but failed to satisfy opposition Islamists.

The new government, the smallest in Jordan in more than four decades, comprises 14 newcomers including a woman.

The key interior ministry changed hands but veteran diplomat Nasser Judeh remains at the helm of the foreign ministry for the sixth time in a row.

ABOUT 28,000 rivers have disappeared from China's state maps, an absence seized upon by environmentalists as evidence of the irreversible natural cost of developmental excesses.

More than half of the rivers previously thought to exist in China appear to be missing, according to the 800,000 surveyors who compiled the first national water census, leaving Beijing fumbling to explain the cause.

Only 22,909 rivers covering an area of 100sq km were located by surveyors, compared with the more than 50,000 in the 1990s, a three-year study by the Ministry of Water Resources and the National Bureau of Statistics found.

The Falklands/Malvinas dispute moved into cyberspace this week, as British hackers attacked an Argentine game in which the country's police fight to reclaim the territory from British "terrorists".

Dattatec.com launched the version, or map, for the online first-person shooter game Counter Strike this week.

Its intro reads: "In 1982, Argentines fought the English to recover the sovereignty of their Malvinas islands," with the company saying it left Union flags off the map "out of respect to the honour and glory of those who fell in the Malvinas".

A second group has pulled its money from a pooled $1.2 million reward offered during a manhunt for a renegade former California policeman who died in a fiery standoff, a Los Angeles television station said.

The Peace Officers Research Association of California withdrew the $50,000 it pledged for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Christopher Dorner, KNBC said.

An official for the association, which represents 64,000 police union members, told the television station on Friday that the conditions for the reward had not been met because Dorner was not arrested.

On Monday, the city of Riverside, California, pulled its $100,000 contribution to the reward pool for similar reasons. It said its offer was contingent on Dorner's capture.

About 150 to 200 patients of a Tulsa oral surgeon accused of unsanitary practices queued outside a health clinic Saturday, hoping to discover whether they were exposed to hepatitis or the virus that causes AIDS. 7,000 patients were informed they may have been exposed by the poor hygiene of Dr. W. Scott Harrington.

Police supervised a rally of Ku Klux Klan members in downtown Memphis Saturday to protest the City Council's decision to rename three city parks now named after Confederate troops while hundreds spread a more joyful message across the city.

Roughly 75 members of the white supremacist group made an appearance.

Despite fears that tensions could boil over, the march was uneventful with no arrests made and no violence reported.

Police said Saturday they are looking for a transient in the kidnapping of a 10-year-old girl who was snatched from her San Fernando Valley home before dawn last week and abandoned hours later in front of a hospital.

Investigators identified 30-year-old Tobias Dustin Summers as a suspect in the case but couldn't elaborate on the motive or what led them to him.

Police don't know if the girl was targeted but said they don't believe Summers had a connection to her family.

An 18-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence in a southern Nevada crash early on Saturday that killed five members of a California family and injured the suspect and three others.

Jean Soriano of California was booked into the Clark County Detention Center after he was treated and released at University Medical Center in Las Vegas, Nevada Highway Patrol Trooper Loy Hixson said.

The crash happened at about 3 a.m. on Interstate 15 near the Utah line.

New York Police are hunting at least three suspects who are thought to have snatched a couple off a street at gunpoint and hustled them into a black minivan. The incident happened in Washington Heights at 6.55 pm on Friday. NYPD have released video surveillance footage of the incident in the hope that a member of the public can help in their investigations. The couple remain missing.

Around two million cubic metres of mud and rocks swept through the gold mine in Gyama, a village in Maizhokunggar county,Tibet, on Friday morning. Two bodies have been found by the 3,000 rescue workers sent to the scene, but they are still searching for 81 other miners thought to have been trapped while sleeping in their tents. The huge mass of debris covered an area of 1.5 square miles.

The confession was made by a former official from the Palestinian Authority, which governs the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Britain donates £33million to the PA and £53million is donated by for other aid projects. The UK also provides and pays for the training of middle and senior ranking officers from every PA security agency, including the General Intelligence Service or Mukhabarat. The official said 'shabeh' is employed, involving the hooding and tying of prisoners in agonising positions.

A British safari guide has told of the terrifying moment he was targeted by lawless armed rebels during the bloody coup which has swept through the Central African Republic.

David Simpson, 25, was left to fend off a gun-toting gang that attacked his bush camp deep in the jungle after the 42 armed military police charged with protecting his group deserted them.

It was the second terrifying incident in the conflict-scarred country for Simpson; who had only recently returned there after spending five months in a hellish jail, after being wrongly accused of multiple murder.

David Cameron faces a revolt by more than 100 Tory MPs this week amid renewed reports his backbench critics are coming closer to mounting a leadership challenge.

In a letter to the Prime Minister, leaked to The Mail on Sunday, the MPs demand that he toughens up his vow to hold a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU if the Conservatives win the next Election.

They state he must hold a Commons vote on the issue before the Election in 2015 to prove he means it – and to expose Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg, who have made clear they oppose it.

North Korea may have key U.S. cities - and Austin - in its nuclear crosshairs, but most analysts agree that the reclusive totalitarian regime is all bark and no bite.

The sabre-rattling North Korean government unveiled its 'U.S. mainland strike plan' Friday featuring a map showing Hawaii, Washington DC, Los Angeles and the capital of Texas as the targets.

NK News published photos showing Kim Jong Un at an 'emergency meeting' with his military advisers in a room plastered with large-scale maps showing what appear to be missile trajectories pointing to American cities.

Western weapons experts wasted no time ridiculing Kim Jong Un's ambitious plan to attack the US.

'How clumsy of #NKorea to accidentally display their US Mainland Striking Plan -- with ICBMs [Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles] that don't exist,' tweeted Mark Fitzpatrick, director of the non-proliferation and disarmament program for the International Institute for Strategic Studies, according to Foreign Affairs.

Other analysts also chimed in, among them James Hardy, the editor of IHS Jane's Defense Weekly, who wrote that there is little chance North Korea could land a missile anywhere outside the Korean Peninsula.

Five South African soldiers were killed in a helicopter crash on Saturday while they were on patrol for rhino poachers in the Kruger National Park, the defense department said on Sunday.

A spokesman said the five were taking part in "Operation Rhino", in which the army is trying to stop the slaughter of the animals for their horns, worth more than their weight in gold. The cause of the crash is under investigation.

On Wednesday, three suspected poachers were killed in a shoot-out with rangers in the vast Kruger, where the killing of the animals has become rampant.

One of Afghanistan's most surprising success stories lies tucked away on a potholed street notorious for suicide bombings and lined with rusting construction equipment.

The work of the country's top tax collector is more inspiring than the view from his office in Kabul. Taxes and customs raised $1.64 billion last financial year, a 14-fold increase on 10 years ago. That means, now, the government can pay just over half of its recurrent costs such as salaries.

Exxon Mobil was working to clean up thousands of barrels of oil in Mayflower, Arkansas, after a pipeline carrying heavy Canadian crude ruptured, a major spill likely to stoke debate over transporting Canada's oil to the United States.

Exxon shut the Pegasus pipeline, which can carry more than 90,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil from Pakota, Illinois, to Nederland, Texas, after the leak was discovered on Friday afternoon, the company said in a statement.

Russia has warned against sabre-rattling on the Korean peninsula, saying that the tensions between North Korea and South Korea could get out of hand.

"It is necessary not to build up military muscles," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was quoted as saying by the Itar-Tass news agency, in reference to the Korean peninsula.

The situation with North Korea should not be used "as a pretext to solve geopolitical problems by military means, but to concentrate efforts to create conditions for the resumption of the six-nation talks," Lavrov said.

"We may just lose control of the situation. It is sliding into a spiral of a vicious circle."

A tornado in Hokitika has reportedly lifted roofs off buildings and toppled road signs and power poles.

Newstalk ZB listener Georgia McMeeking was leaving a restaurant a short time ago when she heard what sounded like a plane engine accelerating.

She says she felt a massive gust of wind which looked like a tornado and saw branches being blown down the street.

"At the moment I'm standing opposite the jade factory, on the main road in Hokitika, and parts of the roofs have come off, power poles and road signs have been completely flattened. Lots of branches all over and emergency services have just arrived."

Police say a number of buildings in Hokitika, including the hotel, have lost their roofs.

A 35-year-old man has become Cambodia’s eighth bird flu fatality this year, prompting concern about the spread of the virus in the country, a health official said Tuesday.

The latest victim, from the northeastern province of Kampong Cham, died on Monday night from the H5N1 virus in a Phnom Penh hospital, said Ly Sovann, deputy head of the health ministry’s disease surveillance bureau.

He said the man had eaten two ducks which had previously died before he became sick earlier this month.

“We are really worried about the situation because in just two months we have nine cases of bird flu,” Ly Sovann told AFP.

Eight of the nine people died, along with thousands of birds in the villages where the victims lived.

The so-called bedroom tax will see extra charges levied on council house tenants with more bedrooms than they need.

And from next Saturday, the annual increase in tax credits and other working-age benefits will be cut to just 1%, well below the rate of inflation.

The personal income tax allowance for those aged under 65 will rise to £9,440 but the higher rate threshold will fall to £41,450.

The top rate of income tax will also fall from 50p to 45p which Labour claims will shave £100,000 off the annual tax bills of 13,000 people who earn more than £1m a year.

Shadow chancellor Ed Balls said: "These shocking figures show the huge hit millions of families are facing at the very same time as David Cameron and George Osborne are giving millionaires an average £100,000 tax cut.